


Natural Selection

by cendri (crankyoldman)



Series: Psychobabble [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/cendri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gast and some of his earlier research.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Selection

**Author's Note:**

> Well, see, my original Turk concept was devised by Gast, and it involved primarily this crazy thing with music as a way to help people learn. But Gast never seemed like the entirely fluffy guy fanon makes him, and I was reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment and the whole Milgram shebang.
> 
> It's more about the science than the Turks to be honest, and I think this may tie a little into SOLDIER.
> 
> See if you can pick out my favorite.

 Brennon Gast clutched his clipboard, looking at the various soldiers around him. There were ten, a nice even number, and there was no consistency in age or background amongst them. If he didn't know better, this was the perfect random sample. Judging by the various uniforms they all still wore, he could see that two were Air Corps, three were Special Artillery, and the remaining ones were Infantry. Four were women; one from the Air Corps and three from Infantry. One was Wutain.

 

He wondered briefly why that one would be ransacking his homeland. Well, people had their reasons.

 

The only consistency to them was their general expression and their basic age range. Not one was older than twenty-five, with two in particularly looking to be about sixteen or seventeen. Even if that was technically illegal in Midgar, they managed to get away with a few interesting things out in the field.

 

In fact, he much preferred field research to lab research. There were less ways to control certain things, but sometimes you had to be almost intuitive with science. His collegues often criticized this attitude, but he was barely older than most of these soldiers and had already published two papers. He could afford a little scrutiny.

 

At current, he was starting a program for some kind of multipurpose bodyguard thingie. That was a technical military term. He called it TUNE, because people could never guess what the acronym stood for and because he eventually was going to take the recruits that made it past this preliminary into a musical based program that he devised while still in high school.

 

There was a dual purpose to this exercise. One was to give the company people to keep the interests of Shinra in peacetime--when it was really dangerous--and to also poke at a psychological query that he'd been pondering on writing a paper about. He wanted to find out the things people were capable of; the things that polite society ignored.

 

It was only unethical if you didn't look in their eyes. Already there was something different with these ones.

 

"Some of you will be chosen right away. The remaining will be used as training for the others." This, of course, was a lie.

 

No one shifted. He randomly selected a few, but made sure to split the female population evenly. He didn't want to be accused of being sexist.

 

"You five have already been observed as Elite. You will be given new uniforms and given specific instructions later." The trick was to give some a sense of authority, but without saying so. And to make sure the remaining ones were told they were inferior. In plain view of the superior ones.

 

Nurture vs. nature. And it was only the first day.

 

"Those that remain are to follow any command given by the Elite, no matter what. In addition, you are to keep the barracks clean. From now one all of you, Elite or otherwise, are to be referred to by a number code that will be given to you this evening. You are dismissed."

 

He was never fond of military formality, but if he stuck to something they knew, he could observe them more naturally. They were already conditioned people, and already had the spark of something possibly brutal within. But even now, he could see something different in the posture of those that had been chosen for the Elite and something different in the walk of those not chosen.

 

Of course, there would be exceptions, as he learned later.

 

\---

 

They had been running through pretty standard military exercises that the Major had picked out for him. It was hardly special training, but the Elite, with the exception of one of the women, acted as if they'd been given the key to enlightenment. Not only that, a fair bit of hazing on their "helpers" had begun.

 

The Elite was unnofficially headed by F626, a woman with very short black hair from the Infantry. She was the classical military woman; butch, hard-nosed. She ruled with an iron fist, without having been given any instruction to act as such. But he expected this. This was very well documented behavior in line with common sense. Some people were leaders. He even expected how she treated F735, which was somewhat uncommonly cruel. Women were hardly the communal and nurturing types in a war-time situation. They had the fiercest competition out of any of the soldiers.

 

Especially because F735 often did not participate in the hazing. He had to admit that she was a little pretty too, with short curly brown hair and blue eyes. She didn't need to use force to get what she wanted.

 

F626's second was the biggest man in the Elite. A powerful dark man with a carefully shaved head and an interesting scar along his collarbone, his number was M474. He was unfailingly loyal to F626, for reasons Gast was still trying to understand. They were all under strict orders to not fraternize, and so far there had been no cases of that. It was some kind of asexual bond that he could almost admire.

 

The remaining two men were good at following orders, and good at following the crowd during hazing. The only thing of note was that M883 had take a particular sadistic liking to one of the men in the non-Elite crowd. He'd broken M210's nose once already in addition to other injuries. Gast attributed it to M210's hair, which was red and generally made him stand out.

 

Those not chosen to be Elite had formed no union. They were leaderless, and followed orders much like slaves would. Sometimes he would catch a scowl or an act of silent aggression--mostly from M392, a skinny young man with brown hair that tended to fall in his eyes despite being short--but nothing really extraordinary.

 

So far, it was going just as he expected. He would have a paper in no time.

 

\---

 

"I said clean it! That's not clean!"

 

F626 was screeching in her usual tone at M392. Gast had been particularly fascinated by the exchange because M392 had avoided any physical contact with the woman despite the small latrine space. Not only that, he was slowly chipping away at her cruelly calm facade by his quiet, yet decidedly willful, obedience. It was as if he would follow orders on anything, but be sure to do it right and make sure that whoever gave him the order understood his opinion on the matter. F284 in the same group had shown similar behavior when facing two of the Elite males.

 

It was almost as if the unchosen were organizing.

 

"I expect to see it clean when I get back!"

 

Gast almost didn't see the very faint smirk as she left.

 

\---

 

He missed most of it.

 

It was nighttime and he had actually taken some time to sleep. The Major had rushed in, nearly out of breath. Gast had only caught "dead" but he knew what it meant. Likely the Elite had finally taken out one of the unchosen, probably the oddly authoritative one with the willfully obedient attitude.

 

When the Major finally brought him to the barracks, he was surprised to see that the MPs were holding M392 and F284 in handcuffs. F626 was in a bloody mangle on the floor. The rest stood out of the way in the room. Gast could almost make out tears in F735's lovely blue eyes.

 

He walked over to F284's decidedly unpretty--but not butch--form. She was the only woman whose hair was even slightly long. It was blond and fell at her shoulders. She looked like a wreck right now.

 

"What happened?" He asked her, looking straight into her plain brown eyes. She indicated towards the man in handcuffs next to her.

 

"It was an order, sir." Gast frowned. An order from one of the Elites to kill their leader? And if so, why was she seemingly giving M392 responsibility.

 

"I gave it." M392 spoke without being addressed, a direct violation of some of the laws that the Elite made. This caused him to frown more, as previous behaviors indicated that people were more inclined to confess to a crime if they could shirk some of the responsibility off on someone else.

 

"You gave F284 an order to eliminate F626?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"Did you eliminate F626?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"With your own hands?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"Then how?"

 

"As a unit, sir."

 

"But you're not a unit. Only the Elite were a unit."

 

"Survival, sir."

 

Survival? They were functioning just fine. Was this natural mutiny?

 

"Explain."

 

"We didn't want to be eliminated."

 

"Was F626 trying to kill you?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"Had she ordered anyone killed?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"Then why say 'eliminated'?"

 

"Make F284 leader, sir."

 

"Alright."

 

Gast didn't know why he complied. He didn't know why he didn't notice that F284 was trembling all over, or that M392 was still except for his hands. He didn't notice the small things like that. He hadn't puzzled why M392 had turned over leadership like that, or why he had assumed responsibility in the first place.

 

But he did know who to cut first. The woman with the pretty blue eyes would go, she wouldn't be able to handle the kind of work peacetime needed. He also cut two of the men in Elite. They were followers. Shinra needed autonomous beings that could forget they were autonomous in the right situations.

 

They needed a psychological paradox.

 

\---

 

There were no more killings. Gast was glad for this, because he'd had a devil of a time keeping F284 and M392 from being court martialed or worse. He had to write a report on this being a necessary evil or somesuch thing like that... suffice to say, explaining psychology to military types was like pulling teeth. In the end, he got them on a "training exercise hazard" technicality, and the fact that the individuals in question were both lacking in any real records.

 

It was almost as if they were ghosts. But they were far too young to be ghosts already.

 

"Dr. Gast? I have some concerns." The Major often snuck up on him like that, and he nearly upset several of the things on his makeshift desk.

 

"What sort of concerns?" The Major stood standing; perfectly straight.

 

"Well, aside from the fact you're playing god with some unbalanced people, I'm beginning to wonder when you're heading into phase 2."

 

The Major was sometimes rude.

 

"I'm still working out a few kinks in my hypothesis, good Major. You can rest assured that any revolts or murders are well over. The power balance has been reached. I need only choose one more to cut and we'll be moving on."

 

The Major saluted and left his tent. Gast sat for a few minutes and pondered the exchange. Then it dawned on him; the perfect way to cut that last strangler before starting TUNE proper.

 

\---

 

"F284, I want you to tell me who is the weakest."

 

"I can't, sir."

 

Well, he didn't expect that. "Alright, why not?"

 

"Against the code, sir."

 

"What _code_?"

 

He'd made all that remained Elite, and had given them no one to lord over. But they still acted as a unit, including the one remaining member of the original Elite. The logic he had before assumed that this wasn't necessary. So why suddenly did they have a _code_?

 

"The code of the Elite, sir."

 

"And who came up with this?"

 

"The Elite, sir."

 

"But which one?"

 

"We are one, sir."

 

He decided to switch tactics.

 

"Would you like to move onto the next phase, F284?"

 

"Of course, sir."

 

"I can assure you will if you tell me who's weakest."

 

"That is also against the code, sir."

 

Gast was annoyed. Science was going spendidly, but humanity just had some strange bits that didn't want to fit. He wasn't a heartless man. He realized there was something to the human _spirit_ but... this was an exercise, with pre-conditioned people. They were acting almost as if they _cared_ about one another.

 

He had to bring in an outside stimuli.

 

\---

 

The Wutain footsoldier didn't realize he was going to die.

 

Shinra didn't always keep prisoners, but they had kept this one because he said he had information. They had long since occupying his area, though, and he was of no further use. He had informed the Elite that they were going to be eliminating some of the enemy the night before. What he didn't tell them was he was going to test each individual with execution.

 

The guns contained blanks, but they didn't know that.

 

Soldiers could kill people with guns. That was usual. But it took a special person to kill an unarmed man that had been cleverly dressed to look like a civilian. Not only that, they weren't ordered to kill them.

 

They were given a _choice_.

 

Only three people ended up pulling the trigger in the end. And it was just as he'd predicted. Two of them didn't surprise him at all. One did. But then, science was all about interesting little discoveries. His paper would be a success, and hopefully when he was given a few others to fill in the ranks of TUNE, so would his program.

 

\---

 

"So, why did you pull the trigger, M392?" She locked her dull brown eyes on his. She could only do this for a little while, like most people, because he often could unsettle people if he stared back long enough.

 

"Because I had a choice."

 

"And you chose to kill?"

 

"No, I chose to take responsibility for his death."

 

Gast didn't know why he listened in on the conversation. That part of the project was over, and they were well into what he'd really wanted to study.

 

F834 was a brilliant bassoon player, and he had to admit that despite the fact she was plain and tacturn, he had taken a liking to her. She had an odd sort of humor in the right situation. M474 had to switch instruments because he was a little hard on the strings. He'd been given a tuba instead and he was progressing nicely. M392 was learning at a slow but steady pace on the cello. He was the best at theory, but Gast suspected that it had something to do with being bilingual.

 

It was funny how that in trying to figure out how to bring out what people were capable of, he found himself covering up what they were in his own head. When he was teaching them music, he could forget all the other things he'd made them do. He could pretend to be pleasant and that their eyes didn't betray something odd about them.

 

He now understood the necessity of why humanity would wish to mask itself in civilization.

 

"Sir."

 

He nearly jumped. He hadn't realized he'd been standing there, still watching F834 and M392 interact. Sometimes he got lost in his thoughts like that.

 

"Yes?"

 

"The soldiers you request for this phase of your program are here."

 

No more playing with psychology. It was time to get back to work.


End file.
